The site was back online around 1:30 p.m., though it still suffered slow load times. The mobile app was working shortly after.

"As you may know, our Web site was unavailable for a period of time earlier today," the Times posted online just after 3:30p.m. "The outage occurred within seconds of a scheduled maintenance update, which we believe was the cause. We are working on fully restoring service and apologize for any inconvenience."

Around 12:45 p.m. the Times tweeted that it was posting major breaking stories on its Facebook page.

Shortly before noon, the site tweeted, "The New York Times Web site is experiencing technical difficulties. We expect to be back up shortly." the site tweeted at 11:56 a.m. ET today.

About 10 minutes later, the Times used Twitter to direct users to a related Twitter account, @nytimesworld, for news on Egypt's crisis.

The Times blamed a server issue for the outage in a tweet around 12:45 p.m. Speculation online had raised the possibility of a cyberattack against the media company.

As Times used Twitter to let users know what was happening, users took to the social network to look for information about the crash and even crack a few jokes.

"And now we know how Bezos is going to use his tech savvy to save the Washington Post," wrote @mattyglesias, referring to recent news that Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, is buying the Post.

And @joshgreenman tweeted, "Fortunately for the New York Times, nothing is happening in the world."